Preshow

Build: iOS 10 SDK Development, Chapter 11

Our podcast app works, but how do we keep it working? What happens when we screw something up? In this episode, we look at Xcode’s debugging tools, which let us investigate problems while the app is running, either in the simulator or on the device. We can investigate the values of variables, issue commands, preview images, and step through the code one line at a time to figure out what’s going on.

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Play: Madden NFL

For decades, the “Madden” franchise has been the dominant name in videogame football, even more so after obtaining a long-term exclusive license with the NFL. On consoles, the game is a deep simulation of real football that lets you play games for fun or run an entire season. On mobile, however, it’s a different story. Here, the game is loaded up with user-engagement gimmicks: daily tasks, multiple currency systems, stamina that runs out and makes you pay to play more… the usual abuses of in-app purchase games. Also, it sometimes lets you play a little football.

Read: Muv-Luv Alternative, Episode 5, Part 1

Takeru wakes on Yuuko’s sofa to find out why he’s there: she can now confirm that in his dreams, his consciousness has been returning to his original world, the timeline of Muv-Luv Extra. With this development, she’s now ready to take the next step: sending Takeru back to his world mentally and physically, albeit temporarily, so he can get the equations from that world’s Yuuko that this one needs in order to complete the 00 Unit and save Alternative IV.

Build: iOS 10 SDK Development, Chapter 10 (part 2)

Last episode, we got our podcast player actually working by using a navigation controller to transition from the episode list scene to the player scene. That uses the default forward-and-back navigation. This episode, we look at other kinds of segues: a modal segue to take us to a scene where we can add a new podcast feed to the list, and an exit segue to back out of it when done.

NOTE: I had a demo fail when recording this live, so the last five minutes are a reshoot. The code is the same, I just needed to scroll to the bottom of the list to find the new episodes. The reshoot also adds a bit about cleaning up images in reusable table view cells.

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Play: Fake Cuphead

For a few hours on December 18, 2017, the much-praised game CUPHEAD was available on the iOS App Store. Only, it wasn’t actually CUPHEAD. The app was a fake, using assets stolen from the original PC / XBox One game and ported to a somewhat-convincing mobile version of the original. It’s actually playable, so it’s not a surprise that it got past App Review. The real question is how it was created, and how the creators thought they’d ever get away with it.

Fake Cuphead is no longer available on the iOS App Store

Read: Muv-Luv Alternative, Episode 4, Part 4

With the new OS installed on Chizuru and Ayamine’s TSFs, their team breezes to victory in the first mock battle, saving Takeru precious time by avoiding infighting between those two. But now he has a new problem: Mikoto’s dad, a man of many secrets, appears unannounced in Yuuko’s office. And he is clearly up to something.

Build: iOS 10 SDK Development, Chapter 10 (part 1)

Our podcasting app has two scenes — a list of podcast feeds and their episodes, and an MP3 player UI — but no way to connect the two. What we need is a concept of navigation, of going from one scene to the next, and back again. By adding a navigation controller in this episode, that’s exactly what we get: the ability to select an episode and have it transition to the player.

Play: Edge

While many of the earliest iPhone games are now gone from the App Store — victims of App Store economics, the 64-bit transition, or just disinterest — Edge by Mobigames has somehow hung around for nine years. This clever 3D puzzle game uses a distinct minimalist graphic style and bite-size levels to make for one of the best examples of its era. It also has a long and twisted history, having been pulled from sale multiple times under threat from a trademark troll that laid claim to the word “edge” in seemingly any electronic entertainment.

Read: Muv-Luv Alternative, Episode 4, Part 3

The premature arrival of the UN Undersecretary (who’s also Tama’s father) provides another checkpoint for Takeru’s re-run of history, but it looks like he’s changing history more than he expected. He pushes his luck further by trying to get Yuuko to put the new OS on Chizuru and Ayamine’s TSFs, but he comes up against Yuuko’s hidden desperation at the looming Alternative V deadline.

Build: iOS 10 SDK Development, Chapter 9 (part 2)

We’ve wired up our table view to show the parsed podcast episodes, but a single line of cut-off text for each episode leaves a lot to be desired. In this chapter, we look at how to make out episode list far more appealing with the use of custom table view cells, which we lay out in the storyboard, create a class for, and then “dequeue” from the table.

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Play: Vectrex Regeneration

In the early 1980s, some of the most popular arcade games used vector graphics, which differ from conventional CRTs and televisions by drawing shapes directly with the electron gun, rather than illuminating a grid of pixels. The Vectrex system brought some of these games home, as a standalone video game unit with its own built-in vector display. Vectrex Regeneration is an emulator for iOS that presents most of the classic Vectrex library, along with homebrew games coded decades after Vectrex’s brief hardware existence.

“Shoot the Robot, Then Shoot Mom” by Timothy Skelly (Cinematronics designer) on Amazon

Read: Muv-Luv Alternative, Episode 4, Part 2

It’s info-dump time on Muv-Luv Alternative! Takeru tells BETA-verse Yuuko all about video games and why she should invest her time into making TSFs control like his beloved Valgern-On game. Then, at the next sign of history repeating itself on the wrong schedule, he rushes in to tell her about the impending HSST incident, which leads to learning a lot about the nature of BETA hives, the Alternative plans, and how far the IV and V supporters would go to secretly get a leg up on one another.

[Yes, I mistakenly said “Muv-Luv Unlimited” at the top of the episode. Hey, I do these things late at night, OK?]

Build: iOS 10 SDK Development, Chapter 9 (part 1)

Using our class to download podcast feeds and parse their XML, we’re now ready to show the feed to the user. In this episode, we look at how to create table views, which list the episodes in a scrollable view for users to choose from. (As a bonus, watch as I put the last step in the wrong part of the code, which led to a five minute debugging session that has been edited out of this video).

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Play: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record

Spinning off of the immensely popular anime “Madoka Magica”, the Japan-only “Magia Record” offers a deceptively cute RPG take on the franchise. It alternates between chibi turn-based battles, and more on-model dialogue scenes between feuding magical girls in a neighboring town, one of whom ominously tells time magician Homura that magical girls can be “saved” there.

Read: Muv-Luv Alternative, Episode 4, Part 1

With the CCSE behind them, the cadets are ready to begin their Tactical Surface Fighter training in the simulators. Everything seems to be going great for Takeru, but other things are afoot. He knows to expect to be challenged by Tsukiyomi and the Imperial Guard, but why’s he having dreams of his original world all of a sudden? And how can Kasumi be showing him drawings of a video game she’s never known to exist?